“Never,” Knox vowed. “No one means more to me than both of you. You believe me, don’t you, Riley?”
His pale blond head bobbed in mute agreement. He stared at Knox for a long moment, then stepped forward and wrapped the big male in a tight hug.
Relief washed over Leni as she watched the tender exchange between them. But it didn’t diminish the panic that had taken up residence in her breast.
When Knox rose, she saw the same bleakness reflected in his grave stare.
“What if there are more of them?” she asked woodenly.
He gave a grim shake of his head. “There was only the one. The Parrishes hired him. I read it in the bastard the instant I touched him.”
It didn’t shock her to hear Travis’s family would send an assassin out to kill them. She was fresh out of shock after what happened in this room tonight. But confusion gnawed at her.
Confusion and a cold, dawning realization she didn’t want to acknowledge.
“How did they know where we are? How could they know how to find—” The words jammed in her throat, trapped there by a knot of anguish.
Oh, God. Carla.
She didn’t have to say her friend’s name out loud. If she had, it only would have added to Riley’s trauma. Knox’s bleak expression confirmed what she couldn’t bear to say.
Carla was dead.
“You’re sure?” she asked, her voice breaking with grief.
Knox acknowledged with a sober nod. “The Parrishes sent the Hunter there first. She didn’t volunteer anything, Leni. But it wouldn’t have mattered if she had.”
Leni didn’t want to believe it, but the truth was there in Knox’s solemn gaze.
Her friend was gone.
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have said anything to her this morning. If I hadn’t—”
Knox shook his head. “It wouldn’t have changed a thing. Hunters hunt, Leni. All that matters to them is eliminating their target. They don’t give a thought to the carnage they leave in their wake.”
She didn’t have to ask how he could be so certain. It was impossible to think of him in the same cold business as the Breed male he’d killed tonight, but she knew Knox was lethal. Now, she had seen it firsthand.
And while she loathed the sick madman who’d kept her mate a prisoner of his brutal program for so many years, she had never been more grateful for Knox’s deadly talents than she was right now.
If only there had been some way to protect her friend too. Leni wanted to crumble as he drew her into his tender embrace, but she had to hold herself together. For Riley. For Knox.
She had to hold it together for Carla, too, because Leni knew her best friend would demand it of her.
Inhaling a fortifying breath, she drew out of the comfort of Knox’s arms. “What are we going to do?”
“The Order should be here in three to four hours. I need you to stay put with Riley and wait for them. I’m going to leave you my phone. There’s a number stored in it that will put you in touch with my brother Razor in Florida. If you need to reach the Order’s team before they get here, he can make that happen.”
Leni didn’t like the way this was sounding. “What about you?”
A tendon jerked in his healing jaw. “I’m taking this war to the Parrishes’ doorstep. And I’m going to end it, once and for all.”
CHAPTER 26
It would have been faster to make the trek back to Parrish Falls on foot, but far less satisfying than rolling up to the Parrishes’ property in the black SUV that belonged to the killer they’d hired.
Knox had made the drive in record time. Fury seethed in his veins as the miles fell away between the hidden safe house where he’d left Leni with Riley and the Parrishes’ compound estate on the edge of town.
Before leaving Leni, he’d taken Riley aside and erased the boy’s memory of the attack. Mind-scrubbing was an ability all of the Breed had, though Knox used it sparingly. It felt invasive to him, stealing a piece of someone’s past, but in Riley’s case there was no question it was a mercy. No one should have to live with a reminder of the ugly brutality that existed in the world, least of all an innocent child.
